Sunday, November 08, 2015

Answering Barry Arrington's challenge: Darwinism predicted junk DNA

In my first post [Answering Barry Arrington's challenge: Darwinism] I established that Barry Arrington's version of "Darwinism" is actually "Neo-Darwinism" or the "Modern Synthesis." We all know why Intelligent Design Creationists would rather use "Darwinism"—this explains why they deliberately change the meaning to make it look like they understand evolution

Arrington's version of "Darwinism can be seen in the Uncommon Descentglossary. It focuses on natural selection as the mechanism of evolution and doesn't mention Neutral Theory of random genetic drift.

Barry Arrington's challenge to me is ...

OK, Larry. I assume you mean to say that I do not understand the basics of Darwinism. I challenge you, therefore, to demonstrate your claim.

This statement is breathtakingly false. Let us take just one example. For years Darwinists touted “junk DNA” as not just any evidence but powerful, practically irrefutable evidence for the Darwinian hypothesis. ID proponents disagreed and argued that the evidence would ultimately demonstrate function.

Not only did both hypotheses make testable predictions, the Darwinist prediction turned out to be false and the ID prediction turned out to be confirmed.

EL, you are entitled to your own private opinion. You are not entitled to your own private facts. And when you make it up as you go like this, be sure you will be called out.

Here's the issue. "Darwinism" is defined as evolution by natural selection according to Arrington and the glossary on Uncommon Descent. (Barry Arrington is in charge of the blog.) He said that "Darwinists" predicted junk DNA and he states clearly that junk DNA is supposed to be "practically irrefutable evidence for the Darwinian hypothesis."

But, as most Sandwalk readers know, nobody predicted junk DNA, certainly not Darwinists. Junk DNA confers no fitness advantage on the individual. It's certainly detrimental at some level because it uses up resources for no benefit. If Darwinists were presented with the possibility of junk DNA back in 1970 then they would almost certainly have rejected it because it doesn't make sense in a strictly Darwinian world. In fact, most supporters of Neo-Darwinsm and the hardened version of the Modern Synthesis DID reject junk DNA back then and they still do even today.

Barry Arrington is dead wrong and his error shows that he does not understand evolution by natural selection (=Darwinism).1 The only reasonable explanation for the presence of massive amounts of junk DNA in a genome requires that you understand the role of neutral alleles and how they can be fixed in a population by random genetic drift. That kind of understanding has nothing to do with Darwinism.

Here's what he says in the comments to his latest post.

Moran made the claim that I do not understand Darwinism. As the one advancing a claim he has the burden of supporting it. He could do that by, for example, pointing to a statement I have made that contains a basic error about Darwinism. If he is unable to support his claim it means he made a claim he cannot back up.

This is my claim. Barry Arrington says that Darwinism predicted junk DNA and that junk DNA is strong evidence of the Darwinian hypothesis. This shows clearly that Barry Arrington does not understand his own version of Darwinism and doesn't understand evolutionary theory. He committed a basic error about Darwinism.

Maybe he's changed his mind? Maybe the first 18 years he spent learning about Darwinism were wasted but he's learned a lot more in the past two years? That's not very likely.

Elizabeth Liddle posted a comment on Arrington's post about predicting junk DNA. She pointed out that: (1) junk DNA is not consistent with Darwinian mechanisms, and (2) junk DNA has not been refuted.

Dr. Liddle, have you no shame? All I can say is your revisionist history is stunning in its scope and audacity.

Whole books were written by ID proponents about the Darwinist myth of junk DNA. See here.

The ID position has now been largely vindicated and the Darwinist position debunked.

You know that. Therefore, I simply cannot imagine that you assert to the contrary in good faith. If I did not know better, charity would demand that I ascribe your statements to near invincible ignorance. Sadly, that option is not open to me. Therefore, I can only conclude that you are willfully and mendaciously misrepresenting the record.

You made a false statement in the prior post. I posted a second post calling you out. Instead of conceding or retracting you doubled down. Will you double down again or will you retract?

Shortly after this Elizabeth Liddle was banned from Uncommon Descent.

I don't think Barry Arrington has changed his mind since then because it would have been accompanied by a great deal of grovelling and we surely would have heard about it.

It's safe to assume, therefore, that today he's as ignorant about the role of natural selection and junk DNA as he was two years ago.

Challenge met. Over to you, Barry.

1. I suspect he's confused about the conservation of pseudogenes, which some biologists have pointed to as strong evidence of shared ancestry and a challenge for ID. It's common for ID proponents to conflate that claim with the debate about the prevalence of junk DNA. It's just one more bit of evidence that they don't understand evolution.

Hmm. One of Joe's posts went missing. Maybe Larry deleted it. He tends to do that with stupid posts that contribute nothing to intelligent discussion. He's funny that way. However, if Joe does manage to provide the answers to Mathgrrl's problems, I hope they'll be kept up. After all, the world has been waiting over four years for them....

The sad thing is that Barry and his adoring creationist sychophants will be unable to appreciate this exquisite piece of pwnage, because that would require that they actually understand Darwinism. And you've just demonstrated that they do not. The rest of us appreciate it, however.

The quote they use does not demonstrate that Colllins does not understand Darwinism. What he says is that, once it is known that junk DNA exists, Darwinian theory would predict that mutations will more likely be retained there than in functional DNA. Which is perfectly true, but very different than saying that "Darwinism" would predict the existence of junk DNA in the first place.

The IDiots are focusing on pseudogenes in their discussions among themselves. This is not unexpected because we've seen in the past that they tend to get very confused about junk DNA whenever the topic comes up. They tend to quote arguments about pseudogenes and the fact that they are found in closely related species as arguments in favor of genomes full of junk DNA.

What they're doing now is pointing to statements about pseudogenes as evidence that "Darwinists" predicted that genomes would be full of junk DNA.

This is confusing because Barry Arrington said ...

Not only did both hypotheses make testable predictions, the Darwinist prediction turned out to be false and the ID prediction turned out to be confirmed.

Does that mean that ID proponents predicted there would be no pseudgenes? Does that mean that all postulated pseudogenes now have a function according to IDiots?

It's very hard to find a logical train of thought in an ID proponent, even if you focus on just one of them.

If the issue is just about pseudogenes than what did Barry mean when he addressed Elizabeth Liddle with ...

The ID position has now been largely vindicated and the Darwinist position debunked.

You know that. Therefore, I simply cannot imagine that you assert to the contrary in good faith. If I did not know better, charity would demand that I ascribe your statements to near invincible ignorance. Sadly, that option is not open to me. Therefore, I can only conclude that you are willfully and mendaciously misrepresenting the record.

Did he mean that Jerry Coyne's offhand "prediction" of pseudogenes has been shown to be completely wrong, justifying the attack on Elizabeth Liddle? If so, what it the evidence that all pseudogenes are functional. (Hint: there is none.)

If that's not what he meant then why did he offer a 2009 quotation from Jerry Coyne on pseudogenes as the strongest evidence that he is right about 'Darwinists" predicting junk DNA? [Larry Moran is a Desperate Man]

VJ Torley inadvertently provides more ammo for Barry's critics, in comment #12 of the latest UD post, when he quotes Richard Dawkins:

I have noticed that there are some creationists who are jumping on [the ENCODE results] because they think that’s awkward for Darwinism. Quite the contrary it’s exactly what a Darwinist would hope for, to find usefulness in the living world….

Neither Torley nor Arrington seem to have yet noticed how this undermines their argument. It was Torley, recall, who first did the calculations that demonstrated that CSI could be produced by evolutionary processes, in the infamous "mathgrrl" affair:

http://www.softwarematters.org/mathgrrl.html

The creationists might start considering it in their best interests to put a muzzle on Torley.

1. The question is not whether CSI can be produced by unguided evolutionary processes, but how much CSI can be created by such processes. What ID proponents maintain is that these processes are incapable of generating more than 500 bits of CSI, which corresponds to Dembski's universal probability bound of 1 in 10^150.

2. (a) Would you call Francis Collins a Neo-Darwinist? (b) Did Francis Collins use the fact that we have large amounts of junk DNA in his book, "The Language of God"? Take a look at Gert Korthof's review of the book at http://wasdarwinwrong.com/korthof83.htm , and you'll see that the answer to both questions is "Yes."

Here's a quote from Collins' book:

"Even more compelling evidence for a common ancestor comes from the study of what are known as ancient repetitive elements (AREs). ... Mammalian genomes are littered with such AREs, with roughly 45 percent of the human genome made up of such genetic flotsam and jetsam. ... There are AREs throughout the human and mouse genomes that were truncated when they landed, removing any possibility of their functioning. ... Unless one is willing to take the position that God has placed these decapitated AREs in these precise positions to confuse and mislead us, the conclusion of a common ancestor for humans and mice is virtually inescapable." ("The Language of God," pp. 135, 136-137) [Source of quote: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/06/junk_dna_roundup_and_rebuttal020941.html ]

Clearly he's not just talking about pseudogenes here. 45% is a lot.

3. How about biologist John Timmer, a doughty defender of Darwin (see http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/09/discovery-textbook-review/ ), even if he shies away from using the term "neo-Darwinism"? After pointing out that a lot of our DNA gets transcribed into RNA, even though it appears to be non-functional, he discusses different possible interpretations of this fact and adds: "Personally, I fall into the 'it's all junk' end of the spectrum." (See http://arstechnica.com/science/2007/06/encode-finds-the-human-genome-to-be-an-active-place/ .)

4. Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel published an article in "Nature" in 1980 (284: 604-607) arguing that such DNA “is little better than junk,” and “it would be folly in such cases to hunt obsessively” for functions in it. Were they Neo-Darwinists?

Had Professor Moran merely claimed that not all Neo-Darwinists believe in junk DNA, he would have been in a defensible position. Had he claimed that Neo-Darwinists believe in less junk DNA than neutralists then his position would also have been a sensible one. But when he makes sweeping statements such as, "most supporters of Neo-Darwin[i]sm and the hardened version of the Modern Synthesis DID reject junk DNA back then [in 1970 - VJT] and they still do even today," he is making an unwarranted assertion. Quite a lot of Neo-Darwinists don't reject junk DNA.

Finally, I might add that I personally have no problem with junk DNA. I don't think it counts against Intelligent Design if we find a large amount of junk in our genome. The real question is how the stuff that isn't junk originated.

As Arlin posted somewhere else in this blog, a prediction should predate the finding. This is all useless banter, nobody cares what anyone says after Junk DNA was observed. Also a prediction should follow logically form the theory, so if "Darwinism" is all about natural selection, something like Junk DNA which has a cost and provides no selective advantage can never be a prediction of "Darwinism", doesn't matter who said what decades after evidence for Junk DNA was found.

The question is not whether CSI can be produced by unguided evolutionary processes, but how much CSI can be created by such processes

The question is how can you keep pretending CSI is a (valid) metric for anything at all.

1) Hey, that's just super. So you've calculated how many "bits" of CSI were produced in each of "mathgrrl's' scenarios. It only took you guys 4 years, but better late than never. So what are the answers? Please show your work. (After that, we can get around to discussing how Dembski supports his assertion that only "intelligence" can create more than 500 bits of CSI).

As to the rest, I'm afraid you're still well wide of the mark. Larry is not arguing that there are not some people who are referred to as "Darwinists" or "Neo-Darwinists" and who accept the existence of junk DNA. The question, rather, is whether Darwinism, itself, would lead to a prediction of the existence of junk DNA. Neither Barry (nor, with all due respect, yourself) seem to understand why this would not be the case.

If I were to provide a number of quotes by ID proponents who deny the existence of junk DNA (and that could be done very easily), would that then demonstrate that you are incorrect in saying that ID does not predict the absence of junk DNA?

BTW, vjtorley, what do you think of that argument for common descent you quote from Francis Collilns? It's pretty convincing, don't you think? Are there not a lot of your fellow ID proponents on Uncommon Descent who still do not accept common descent? Why don't you try quoting that to them, so they don't keep embarrassing your movement with their stupidity and ignorance?

I would never use that quote from Francis Collins, because he's since repudiated his own position. See http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2015/01/francis-collins-rejects-junk-dna.html .

Re the four scenarios you mention, see my remarks here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-non-evolution-of-irreducible-complexity-how-arthur-hunt-fails-to-refute-behe/#comment-373699 . The reason for the 500-bit cutoff is that we're talking about a highly specific event which wouldn't be expected to happen even once in the history of the observable universe. If such an event nevertheless happens, then it's rational to infer design.

Finally, I'm not claiming that Darwinism (or Neo-Darwinism) predicts the existence of junk DNA. What I'm saying is that it's a highly malleable theory which is perfectly compatible with the existence of large amounts of junk DNA.

You're not listening Vincent. "Darwinism" is incompatible with Junk DNA, that's why currently there are other mechanisms like drift and no one is really a "Darwinist" except in the creationist mind.

You say that it's a "highly malleable" theory. I guess you feel the same about gravity. After all when the orbit of Mercury seemed to challenge Newton's law scientists also worked to find a new mechanism to account for it.

While it may be true that evolution as a general concept doesn't predict any particular outcome, the same is true for gravity. Does gravity predict the Asteroid belt? or the rings of Saturn? It's when one dwell into the level of detail that more precise predictions can be made. You know, that "pathetic" level of detail that Dembski and the entire IDC movement scoffs.

I would never use that quote from Francis Collins, because he's since repudiated his own position. See http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2015/01/francis-collins-rejects-junk-dna.html .

That quote does not demonstrate that he has repudiated the idea of ARE's as evidence for common ancestry. But, that aside, if you think he did repudiate that claim, why are you quoting him in such a way as to suggest he still holds that position? Isn't that just a bit dishonest?

That aside, what evidence would you choose to cite to convince your IDiot friends who reject common ancestry that they are wrong?

Re the four scenarios you mention, see my remarks here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-non-evolution-of-irreducible-complexity-how-arthur-hunt-fails-to-refute-behe/#comment-373699 .

That doesn't contain the answer to the question I asked, regarding the calculation of CSI in mathgrrl's 4 scenarios. I guess you must have linked to the wrong comment by mistake. If you could find the correct link, that would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

The reason for the 500-bit cutoff is that we're talking about a highly specific event which wouldn't be expected to happen even once in the history of the observable universe. If such an event nevertheless happens, then it's rational to infer design.

Yes, we know that's what Dembski asserts. Like I said, let's first demonstrate that CSI can even be calculated in any meaningful way. Then we can get around to debating whether Dembski's claims are correct.

Thanks for catching my error there. What I should have said is that Darwinism would not lead to the prediction of the existence of junk DNA. But your IDiot friend, Barry Arrington, thinks it would. Hopefully you're smarter than he is.

What I'm saying is that it's a highly malleable theory which is perfectly compatible with the existence of large amounts of junk DNA.

"Is perfectly compatible with", of course, is not synonymous with "....would predict...." I'm curious, though: Do you believe "Darwinism" is not malleable enough to account for the absence of "junk DNA"? Your statements seem to imply you do not.

As for the math, VJ, please. You already did the math yourself. Gene duplication increases CSI way beyond the bullshit 500 bit limit. It's trivial to show that. And you admitted it, before you took it back, because the math didn't give the answer Dembski said you should get.

You're aware that Barry did not show that "Darwinism" predicts junk DNA, that he rather quoted people he labeled as "Darwinists" saying some thing or another perhaps related to junk DNA. Not the same s showing his knowledge about how "Darwinism" would predict junk DNA, right? It's not the same to quote statements as to showing that "Darwinism" would predict junk DNA.

Do you understand that at all? Barry deflected. He showed no knowledge about "Darwinism" in that supposed response.

"The reason for the 500-bit cutoff is that we're talking about a highly specific event which wouldn't be expected to happen even once in the history of the observable universe. If such an event nevertheless happens, then it's rational to infer design."

Wait. So, ID (Dembski) assumes that such a highly specific event wouldn't be expected to happen THEN he sets the cutoff to an arbitrary extremely high number to show that such a thing wouldn't be expected to happen.

I can't decide whether this is more circular reasoning or assuming the conclusion (it's both, but which one more).

Of course, ID has yet to show how the multitude of experiments that extend way past the "probability bound" are influenced by the designer. There's many experiments, pick one and show us the evidence of the designer in it.

There is 'some' justification to 500 bits: It comes from the universal probability bound - Particles in observable universe = 10^85, maximum interactions per second 10^45, age of universe in seconds 10^25 = 10^150. 10^150 (the probabilistic resources) of the universe =/= 2^498

The usefulness of the Universal Probability Bound is that, with just mutation, you cannot get a well-adapted organism. The UPB, whatever its original use, is used in ID arguments to show that getting, say, a fish that can actually swim is wildly improbable, so improbable that (mutational processes) can't even come up with it once in the history of the universe.

As such it is an obvious point, and exactly what number is used for the UPB is really unimportant. That doesn't stop some opponents of ID from obsessing about the number or worrying about whether Lloyd used it for something else.

The real problem with the ID arguments that use the UPB is not that step. It is that they have no argument that rules out that natural selection can do the job, namely achieve the swimming fish or the flying bird. And do it with a vastly higher probability than would pure mutation.

And, if I understand correctly, Joe, is the effect of NS mostly thru the fact that it reduces number of non-adaptive paths that could be followed by mutations, and thereby limits the size of the sequence space that must be explored to arrive at adaptations?

And even then, it is one winning hand out of how many possible winning hands?

That I think is where the ID math really fails (at least the slightly better informed variety such as Dr. Behe's malaria parasite example). They get the selection piece but then figure it's game over if they show pure selection can't take you from the particular non-resistant configuration to the resistant configuration. This bars both genetic drift and any other possible path to resistance.

The primary error that Behe made with his malaria parasite calculation is that he mistook the frequency with which the choroquine resistant strain has actually been detected by human beings as the frequency with which it would arise thru evolutionary processes. The former is obviously much lower than the latter.

I thought the primary error was that he assumed that at least two simultaneous mutations, neither advantageous on its own, were required for chloroquine resistance, while the facts show this to be untrue.

No, not as I recall, though my memory may be faulty. It's a a bit ambiguous,. though, because at times he would say he was calculating the odds for sequential mutations, but use the numbers appropriate for calculating simultaneous mutations.

I summarized my understanding of the flaws in his argument on another forum, here:

What about instead of playing semantics, and misquoting whomever, you explain how exactly natural selection would predict junk DNA. No, no, no, no. Don't tell me that a "Darwinist" said so. The question was about your understanding, not about whether you could find quotes by people you label as "Darwinists."

I truly don't understand how those idiots posting in your favour don't notice that instead of showing how well you understand, you deflected.

Seriously, here is Banny Arrogant, famous abortion ambulance chaser and world expert on woman-on-dog p0rn, demolishing all of modern geology.

"Everyone knows there are no rabbit fossils in the strata that have been labeled “Cambrian.”"

Well, no. We know that... but some creationists do point to alleged "out of sequence" fossils.

And note how Banny does not say "Cambrian strata." He switches to passive voice verbs, like all honest men, and makes them "the strata that have been labelled Cambrian."

We should all use this "have been labelled" passive voice trick. Barry Arrington, who has been alleged to no longer rape baby seals, continues:

"First, eigen’s sputtering to the contrary notwithstanding, the primary reason a stratum would be called “Cambrian” in the first place is because of the absence of rabbit fossils."

So Banny Arrogant, who has been alleged to run over nuns and orphans with his Porsche less often than he used to, is back to the old "They date the fossils from the strata, and they date the strata from the fossils" horseshit from Flood Geologist G. M. Price at the turn of the century... 20th century, that is. You'd think 115 years of debunking by geologists would educate the IDiots.

Take that, modern geology and the trillion dollar mineral extraction industry built on it! When you geologists found all those oil and mineral deposits, y'all were just guessin'. You sure got lucky with that circular logic of yours!

Diogenes quoted arrington as saying: "First, eigen’s sputtering to the contrary notwithstanding, the primary reason a stratum would be called “Cambrian” in the first place is because of the absence of rabbit fossils."

Larry has nothing. The science has passed him by and he is left with hollow rhetoric and imagination. It’s a fascinating time to be alive as Darwinism crumbles to the ground under the science and its apostles are reduced to cartoon characters. Larry is Monty Python’s Black Knight guarding the bridge. His arms and legs are chopped off and he is surrounded by a pool of his own blood but he fights on all the while claiming victory (Larry desperately needs that irreducibly complex blood clotting mechanism for which he has no explanation). Fight on, Larry. At least you’re entertaining as a comic if pathetic as a scientist.

It's astonishing to me that some people can be so out of touch with reality.

It's also astonishing that nobody of the ID side ever speaks out against such nonsense. I could never get away with something like that on a science blog—not even my own.

“From an ID perspective, however, it is extremely unlikely that an organism would expend its resources on preserving and transmitting so much ‘junk’.” , Jonathan Wells, “Using Intelligent Design Theory to Guide Scientific Research,” Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design, 3.1.2 (Nov. 2004)

First of all, this is an evolutionary perspective, not an ID perspective as far as I can tell. That an organism would not expend its energy on junk DNA was the original response of evolutionary theory at the time non functional DNA was proposed. Assuming this would impose a burden on individuals that affected their reproductive success, it was thought non functional DNA would be selected against. Jonathan Wells needs to catch up on evolutionary thought from about half a century ago. Apparently the resources required are not too burdensome from a fitness measure.

So from an "ID perspective", we are still left without a scientific reason why 'no junk DNA' is a prediction of ID creationism.

"First of all, this is an evolutionary perspective, not an ID perspective as far as I can tell. That an organism would not expend its energy on junk DNA was the original response of evolutionary theory at the time non functional DNA was proposed. Assuming this would impose a burden on individuals that affected their reproductive success, it was thought non functional DNA would be selected against."

Yeah, and what you're describing is the evolutionary perspective that was/is labeled as 'Darwinism/Darwinian'. The same 'perspective' (at least in regard to junk DNA) that the IDiots are relying on and promoting. The IDiots are 'Darwinists/Darwinians'.

I just saw this article that mentions yet another Dr. Moran who has stared into the abyss of junk in our genome.

http://phys.org/news/2015-11-parasite-tail-team-gene-mystery.html

Excerpt: "Our DNA is a sea of junk copies of LINE-1 that can't jump, and a small minority of LINE-1s that can," says (John) Moran, who is the Gilbert S. Omenn Collegiate Professor of Human Genetics in the U-M Department of Human Genetics. "We need to understand at the RNA level how these LINE-1 RNAs are chosen for jumping, and how we can stop them."

Laurence A. Moran

Larry Moran is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.

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Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake.
Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.
Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.
Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.
Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is TrueI once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma
One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick
There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins
Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.